Posts tagged Biden administration
Commentary: Short-Term Gains, Long-Term Harm: The Real Cost of Union Monopoly Power
May 22, 2026 // The Mercatus paper's survey findings cut against the union narrative in ways that should matter to anyone who follows labor policy. When asked directly, workers say they prefer unions that cooperate with management over unions that are more powerful but adversarial. They prefer having multiple options for representation rather than one organization with legal monopoly control over their workplace. And union progressive political activity and strikes, the two things union leadership most reliably prioritizes, are the only factors that consistently make workers less favorable toward organized labor.
Commentary: Mamdani Misreads What Gig Workers Want
May 21, 2026 // Arranged scheduling cuts directly against what gig workers value most: flexibility. More than 60 percent cite it as the main reason they chose this work, and few are interested in traditional, prescheduled jobs. They’re also more concerned about the lack of benefits than about wage rates. These realities underscore the wrongheadedness of Mamdani’s anti-gig campaign. A better approach would preserve flexible hours while expanding access to benefits. One promising model is a portable benefits system, in which workers and companies contribute to SEP IRA–style accounts that can be used to purchase health insurance, paid leave, or retirement plans. Numerous states—red and blue alike, from Tennessee to Maryland to Pennsylvania—have enacted portable-benefits systems for gig workers in recent years.
DOL gets flexible on overtime
May 18, 2026 // The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires that workers be paid time-and-a-half once a work week exceeds 40 hours. However, employers may exempt workers classified as managerial who meet a salary threshold. In 2023, The Biden administration raised the income threshold from $35,500 to $44,000, and planned to increase it again to $59,000 annually by 2025. This was intended to expand the number of people receiving overtime. The administration’s union allies and labor-sympathetic lawmakers have long argued that companies abuse the exception by designating regular employees as managerial to get out of having to pay them overtime. Raising the threshold was meant to prevent this. This one-size-fits-all approach did not necessarily benefit all workers.
Commentary: Mayer’s Concurrence Says What Every American Worker Already Knows
May 8, 2026 // The numbers tell the story. Workers in the original Rieth-Riley case filed their petitions in 2020. Those petitions remain dismissed to this day. Smith's petition has been in limbo for over two and a half years, with no hearing date in sight on the underlying case. As Mayer put it, "the open-ended dismissals approved in Rieth-Riley have deprived employees in case after case of any opportunity to vote in a Board-conducted election for years."
100 State Leaders Urge Washington to Protect Independent Work
May 8, 2026 // That is why State Policy Network’s Center for Practical Federalism helped organize a coalition of 100 state leaders from 25 states in support of the US Department of Labor’s proposed rule clarifying independent contractor status under federal law. The coalition includes four statewide officials and 96 state legislators. The proposed rule would rescind the Biden administration’s 2024 independent contractor rule and replace it with a clearer standard for determining when a worker is an employee and when a worker may be classified as an independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act.
Op-ed: Unions are acting as a toll booth on the road to unaccountable single-party power
May 8, 2026 // Unions do not write personal checks. They collect dues from membership — teachers, construction workers, public employees — then steer voluntary PAC contributions through ActBlue, the Democrats’ preferred fundraising apparatus. The tilt is so extreme it would embarrass a slot machine. The National Education Association’s PAC raised nearly $27 million in the 2024 election cycle, virtually every dollar aimed at electing Democrats. The four largest government unions — the NEA, the American Federation of Teachers, AFSCME, and the Service Employees International Union — spent more than $700 million on election-related activity in the 2021–22 cycle alone, with 96 percent flowing to Democratic candidates and organizations. That is not grassroots democracy — it is a toll booth on the road to single-party rule.
Op-ed: It’s Time to Unwind Biden’s Chaos for Freelancers, Small Business
April 29, 2026 // Preserving flexible work is extremely important to women, who make up about half of the nation’s freelance workforce. Nine out of 10 women who left traditional jobs to freelance did so for flexibility. As caregivers, independent contracting allows moms to raise children or care for aging parents. Sara B. stated in her supportive comment for the proposed rule, “I value my flexibility and independence with Instacart because I'm a mom who can only work sometimes because I don't have many people to help me watch my child so I can work. Being able to work whenever I want helps me so much.” For seasoned workers transitioning into retirement and older Americans supplementing Social Security benefits, flexible work keeps them engaged.
Freelance Busting: The ABC Test Defense
April 22, 2026 // And perhaps most important, according to all of the oral testimony and thousands of written public comments submitted to New Jersey’s Labor Department, there are zero people being unknowingly classified as independent contractors. You can download and read here the eight (yes, only eight out of about 9,500) public comments that individuals supporting the proposed rule change filed. Not a single one of them says the person was unknowingly working as an independent contractor.
Op-ed: Congressional Republicans Should Unshackle Entrepreneurs
April 16, 2026 // Efforts to restore clearer regulations around contractor standards recognize these realities. However, a future administration can scuttle any regulation its Labor Department issues. Legislative clarity solves that problem, and Congress has a vehicle to provide it. The Modern Worker Empowerment Act clarifies standards for independent work, protecting legitimate independent businesses while preserving safeguards against worker misclassification. A law, duly passed and signed, means real, future-proofed certainty for entrepreneurs, freelancers and the organizations that rely on them.
‘Power in the hands of people’: union leaders push to revive ailing US labor movement
April 15, 2026 // Leaders of some of the largest unions in the US have unveiled a drive to jumpstart the country’s ailing labor movement and combat growing wealth inequality under Donald Trump. To make it easier for workers to join a union, and strengthen the hand of new unions negotiating with powerful businesses, a string of prominent organizers joined together to launch Union Now, a non-profit designed to increase labor union density.